SAN FRANCISCO — Manny Machado was working on getting the ball back.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
Well, he did know at one point. It had just slipped his mind that the home run he hit in the third inning of Thursday’s 3-2 loss to the Giants was the 350th of his career.
Home run No. 350 for Manny Machado! 💥 pic.twitter.com/ZqPjf2tPao
— MLB (@MLB) June 5, 2025
It was Xander Bogaerts who congratulated him an inning later.
“It’s a huge accomplishment,” Machado said. “Big milestone for sure. …I completely forgot. So it hasn’t really sunk in yet. But yeah, I mean, it’s pretty cool, honestly.”
He is just the 102nd player to ever reach the milestone.
And since he later got his 1,972nd hit, he is closing in on 2,000 of those.
Barring something substantial keeping him from reaching that mark in 2025, Machado will become the 79th player in history to have accomplished the 350/2,000 double and just the 12th to do so by his age-32 season.
Of the 11 already in that club, eight are in the Hall of Fame. One (Alex Rodriguez) had his candidacy derailed by PED use. Two (Miguel Cabrera and Albert Pujols) are recently retired and are certain first-ballot Hall of Famers once they are eligible.
“Those guys are legends of our game, so to even be mentioned in that,” Machado said. “The careers that they’ve had, give me at half of that the rest of the way, and I’ll be pretty happy with it. Those guys, I looked up to all of them. They’re guys, we kind of play the game because of them, looking up to them. And to now even be mentioned (in) that, that’s surreal.”
Among those to have played at least 75% of their games at third base, Machado ranks ninth in home runs. The top four are all in the Hall of Fame, and he is 118 homers shy of No.4 Chipper Jones’ career total.
Machado, the only player in the major leagues to have hit at least 28 home runs in nine straight 162-game seasons, has five home runs in his past 13 games after hitting just three in his first 48.
One thing he has done all season is hit.
His .317 average is third in the National League.
He finished Thursday’s game on second base after leading off the ninth inning with a single.
“He’s got his approach matching that beautiful swing,” manager Mike Shildt said. “I mean, look at the swing he put on the ball in the ninth and the homer off Ray. … Scooped him out of there. And to stay on top of that fastball away from (Camilo) Duval is a great sign. Manny is clearly in a good place.”
